Sisters for Sisters’ Education Project, Nepal

This Spotlight Brief is one of a series of Value for Money papers. It reviews the value for money (VfM) of five significant interventions from the Sister for Sisters’ Education project in Nepal implemented by VSO and funded by UK aid through the Girls’ Education Challenge between 2017 and 2021. It assesses intervention costs against the benefits delivered, by exploring the intervention’s relevancy, cost-effectiveness and sustainability. It is primarily aimed at GEC project partners, implementors and non-governmental organisations who are interested in assessing VfM and understanding which interventions provide good VfM in education programming.

1. Introduction

Funded by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Country Office (FCDO) through the Girls’ Education Challenge (GEC) and implemented by Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO), the Sisters for Sisters’ Education project worked with 49 schools to improve the education of 7,382 marginalised girls in Nepal. Running from 2017 and 2020, the project helped girls to transition from primary to secondary school and leave school ready to continue their education or secure sustainable employment. Other important outcomes included improved self-esteem and a greater sense of empowerment for the girls, and engagement with communities.

This brief reviews the VfM of five main project interventions:

1. Mentoring scheme for girls – 320 well-performing “Big Sisters” in higher grades provided academic support and mentoring to 1,200 highly marginalised “Little Sisters” in lower grades to help give them a voice and agency. The Big Sisters regularly engaged with parents and the school. The Little Sisters also received in-kind support such as stationery items, sanitation kits and uniforms. The support also included 147 adult champions (including teachers) who engaged in dialogue with the community about girls’ education. The project also provided training and capacity building for the Big Sisters and champions and led awareness campaigns against harmful social norms.

2. EDGE (English and Digital Girl’s Education clubs) – Extra classes were provided in schools to introduce technology for digital learning and English. 1,392 girls were EDGE club members.

3. Learning Support Classes – Extra lessons were provided within the school for a subset of girls at school by paying the teachers for extra time after school for three months a year. The emphasis was to help the girls in their weak areas of learning.

4. Parental workshops – These workshops covered all 7,382 project girls. They addressed social norms about girls’ marriage and education by engaging with parents and raising awareness through dialogue, campaigns and street drama.

5. Teacher training – Training was provided to 1,220 teachers. It covered topics such as teaching methodology and strategies to promote inclusive education practices and development of low-cost teaching materials. It also covered child protection policies and mechanisms, psychosocial training, ICT training and creating a positive learning environment.

The Gec Vfm Framework

When reviewing VfM for GEC projects, the GEC VfM framework is applied systematically, drawing on evidence from the endline evaluation findings and project staff interviews. The VfM framework uses four of the OECD DAC criteria:

1. Relevance – whether the project invested in the right activities and modalities to respond to the needs and barriers of the girls identified, with optimal resources allocated to them.

2. (Cost)-effectiveness – whether the project produced the expected outcomes at an optimal cost for the girls and others reached by the project.

3. Efficiency – whether the project delivery was on time, on budget and with good quality processes.

4. Sustainability – whether there has been a long-term continuation of outcomes for the girls and others reached by the project and whether there has been replication and/ or scale-up or adoption without FCDO funding.

Read more about the GEC VfM framework and review methodology here

This VfM review draws on evidence from the project endline evaluation and interviews with the project team. The project endline evaluation consisted of a longitudinal study with a mixed method design for data collection for its second phase (2017 to 2021), with a mixed approach for data collection.

Key Findings From The Vfm Review 1

• The project as a whole offered good value for money. It was cost-effective, delivering 0.25 years (3 months) of education per $100 spent for all girls supported.

• The mentoring scheme coupled with the Learning Support Classes had a fair VfM, being highly relevant and driving learning outcomes. Cost effectiveness could have been better with more girls per mentor targeted to capitalise on the high fixed costs of Big Sister training.

• Teacher training was not good VfM as it did not drive outcomes, partly due to its design and due to the COVID-19 school closures.

• The mentoring scheme for girls can potentially be replicated through local government at a lower unit cost given that fixed capacity building and training costs may not need to be repeated or could be spread across more girls.

• If the project were to continue it is worth remembering that parental awareness and streamlined mentoring for girls offered better value for money than the EDGE clubs and teacher training.

2. What were the project costs?

Figure 1 illustrates the percentage expenditure breakdown by interventions for the project’s entire duration. The greatest cost categories are the mentoring scheme for girls and EDGE clubs. The total cost per girl (of all girls covered within treatment schools) for all interventions combined is £586 or an annual cost of £147. This is comparable to the average expenditure per student for 2019/20 for secondary school in Nepal is £1552. It must be noted that this is not a ‘like for like’ comparison; Sisters for Sisters’ activities had a far wider focus than just education and learning. They covered girls’ empowerment, self-esteem and community engagement with girls’ education, arguably delivering more for a similar cost.

Figure 1: Intervention costs as a percentage of the total project budget (2017 to 2021)